Contents:
The Intro
Release year: 2014
Title: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Developed by: The Astronauts
Genre: Walking simulator
Platform replayed on: PC
The light at the end of the tunnel. We all know that metaphor…
This is how The Vanishing of Ethan Carter begins though. But is it an omen of death, or a new beginning?
You join this journey as Paul Prospero, paranormal investigator, as he responds to a young twelve-year-old Ethan Carter’s fan letter calling for help…
At times it’s tranquil.
At other times, it’s incredibly creepy.
I first played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter a couple of years after it was released, and if I’m honest, it hasn’t had a lasting impression on me.
However, since subsequently playing What Remains of Edith Finch, another walking simulator and one of my favourite gaming experiences of all time, I’ve wanted to revisit The Vanishing of Ethan Carter to see if there was something about the genre or perhaps the story itself that I was missing.
I guess I was chasing another similar experience. But what would I find at the end of my search?
The Game
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an immersive and unique walking simulator, and one that doesn’t hold your hand.
While not holding your hand immediately brings a connotation of difficulty, I’d prefer to describe the gameplay as minimalist. And that’s not a negative either.
This journey, which finds protagonist Paul Prospero drawn to Ethan’s small Wisconsin mining village in 1973, is a narrative experience first and foremost—the gameplay is secondary.
The heads up display is non-existent, which draws you into observing and exploring the landscape, and interacting with it only when necessary.
Two things quickly become apparent as Prospero exits the tunnel and starts exploring. The first is that something terrible has happened in the village.
The second is that Prospero has some sort of paranormal ability to visualise and recreate events based on clues found in certain locations around the village.
To recreate events, you must find and interact with locations and items of interest in a particular scene. Once you’ve found enough clues, you can attempt to piece together what happened by correctly sequencing the events. Get it right, and you can view the whole scene.
Prospero’s first visualisation hints at a malevolent force at work, demanding human sacrifice.
Ethan Carter has also gone missing. As the name of the game suggests: the vanishing of Ethan Carter.
Here’s the first scene played out on YouTube:
But will there be light at the end of this tunnel for Prospero? Is this even Prospero’s story?
Let’s find out, as I replay The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
The Replay
Note: major plot spoilers follow.
It’s not long after you step out of that tunnel as Paul Prospero that you realise the line between reality and fantasy is blurred in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
The contrast between light and dark is also very present, as the stunning imagery of the isolated Wisconsin mining village starts to reveal a dark, sinister, and hidden side to this remote existence.
Prospero’s ability to sense out environmental clues is first used to examine some bizarre traps set in the forest at the tunnel exit.
What Prospero’s vision uncovers is deeply disturbing—a forest floor full of human bones.
But then this version of reality is immediately challenged as you also find a handwritten story by Ethan Carter, and a newspaper clipping.
Ethan’s story is a bizarre tale of a villager who survived a forest fire by covering himself in tree sap while the rest of the villagers perished; a tale seemingly inspired by a newspaper report of a house fire which claimed the life of Ethan’s grandmother.
Prospero has a connection with Ethan. But are his visions showing him what really happened here in the village, or are they just a manifestation of Ethan’s imagination?
While this first vision appeared to be more fantasy than reality, the next scene you come across in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter blurs those lines even further. This time, it’s not just visions of human bones. This time, there’s a body.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter really doesn’t hold your hand, as it’s never immediately obvious where you’re supposed to explore—you just happen to come across areas that can be inspected until you’re ready to piece together the sequence of events that make up a scene.
Usually, the area of exploration is quite small, so it doesn’t take too long before you discover all the pieces.
It’s then only a small amount of trial and error to put the sequences in order.
It didn’t take me long to sequence this horrifying scene, where you witness Ethan’s grandfather saving Ethan’s life. Ethan’s older brother Travis is intent on murdering Ethan in an apparent sacrifice to “the sleeper”.
Ethan’s grandfather knocks out Travis, and then runs him over with a mining train.
Where Prospero’s first vision confused reality with Ethan’s imagination, this second vision depicts a supernatural horror tormenting a family into killing its own.
We see Ethan escape from this scene, but just how long ago was this, and what else happened before or since?
In between the vision and sequencing sections, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter reveals the story in other interesting ways. The first of which sees you chasing down an astronaut.
Yes, that’s right. An astronaut.
Upon chasing down this astronaut, you are hurtled into space inside a small capsule.
No sooner do you arrive in deep space, do you find yourself brought straight back to Earth and reality to the discovery that this was another of Ethan’s stories.
Prospero has discovered Ethan’s treehouse, and apparently his hiding place. As the graffiti scrawled over Ethan’s science fiction magazine in no uncertain terms shows, Ethan is the victim of bullying at the hands of Travis.
Apparently a young boy dreaming of the stars had no place in this village…
Heading to the village proper, it’s not long until Ethan’s imagination for witchcraft and wizardry is again intruding into Prospero’s consciousness.
Exploring an abandoned house requires you to choose the correct vision of the room you’re about to enter. Get it wrong a couple of times in a row, and the house resets and you must start the puzzle again.
Through trial and error I succeeded, though there is an easier way if you explore a neighbouring house which mirrors the layout for you.
The reward is a vision of a wizard’s room, one used to brew potions to see the future. But because the wizard refused to share these potions with the villagers, they burned the house to the ground.
This turns out to be the second fictional account of Ethan’s seeing the villagers wiped out by fire, and again it was based on a real event.
I also mentioned witchcraft, and this next strange vision is a lot closer to home for Ethan. You hear a witch’s voice calling out ominous questions such as “Does death bring peace or suffering?”
Eventually finding the witches hut, it’s transformed into Ethan’s tent—another of his hiding places it seems. And of course, another story. This time, about a witch and a boy and his mother.
A handwritten note by Ethan’s mother also reveals that she loses her temper with him, and that she wishes he would pull his head out of the clouds—obvious frustration and concern with Ethan’s writing.
These tales of Ethan’s depict a lonely boy, desperate for escapism from his less-accepting family.
But what has happened to Ethan? Is his family really trying to kill him and sacrifice him to appease some evil being?
The local church provides some answers.
This turns out to be the second sequencing event to investigate, and like the first (and those that follow), it recreates a murder scene.
In a disturbing revelation, Ethan’s parents and uncle have decided to brick him up in a mausoleum as a sacrifice to this “sleeper”.
However, just as there was disagreement between Ethan’s grandfather and brother, there is disagreement here too, which leads to the death of Ethan’s uncle.
Ethan escapes again.
This escape saw Ethan escaping into the mines, which in turn sees Prospero hot on his trail. The next scene that you must recreate deep under the ground sees the final showdown between Ethan’s parents.
Ethan’s father is on his side, convinced Ethan has nothing but an over-active imagination.
Ethan’s mother is convinced Ethan has released this evil upon them, and that “the sleeper” must be awoken with Ethan’s sacrifice.
Ethan’s father drowns his mother in the mines. He then lets Ethan escape.
Before escaping the mines himself, Prospero comes across another deep tunnel complex, and another of Ethan’s escapist fantasies.
It’s also one of the creepiest gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
There is a ritual to be completed, and a gate opened, which involves locating the corpses of miners in the tunnels.
Haunting your steps through this maze-like underground cavern is a miner who is very much not yet a corpse.
Even though being caught by this miner only results in respawning, never knowing when he might be just around the corner was definitely anxiety inducing.
Once the gate is opened, there’s a definite nod to H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos (see my replay of Alone in the Dark, where I explore Lovecraft and Cthulhu further). Ethan’s story tells of a kraken-like sea creature that is summoned once the ritual is complete and the gate opened.
As Prospero escapes the mining tunnels himself, the next murder to recreate is that of Ethan’s father.
His apparent protector to the end, he ends up killing himself rather than helping Travis (before Travis was later killed by his grandfather).
Prospero also learns how Ethan intends to destroy “the sleeper”, leading him to an abandoned house which had been burned to the ground—the house fire which claimed the life of Ethan’s grandmother.
This brings you to the endgame in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, where you recreate Ethan’s grandfather’s betrayal. Ethan enters the ritual room, ready to torch “the sleeper”. Instead, Ethan’s grandfather locks him in, and in Ethan’s panic, he sets the place on fire.
This was it: the vanishing of Ethan Carter. Burned alive.
But the line has always been blurry between fantasy and reality in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and the ending is no different. Prospero is jolted back seemingly to reality to find a sleeping Ethan in the ritual room.
And then there’s the question: “Paul Prospero. Are you—are you really here?”
And Prospero’s response: “I knew this story. And it was Ethan’s as much as it was mine.”
Ethan is gone.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter ends with what really happened. Ethan’s family had been looking for him. Upon finding him, they can’t hold back their frustration with his unusual behaviour.
Ethan’s mother makes a mistake with the lantern, and the whole place goes up in flames.
Ethan is trapped.
This time, it’s the real vanishing of Ethan Carter.
I asked the question earlier if this is Prospero’s story, and stated that Prospero has a connection with Ethan. I wondered if Prospero’s visions were just manifestations of Ethan’s imagination.
It turns out, Prospero was also one of these manifestations.
The Verdict
I stated in The Intro above that The Vanishing of Ethan Carter hadn’t had a lasting impression on me since I first played it. Upon reflection, having now replayed it, my thoughts have changed.
The challenge while writing this has been to make sense of the story. At face value at the start, you’re playing as Paul Prospero. As Prospero, the narrative in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter presents itself across two threads: the windows into Ethan’s imagination through his fantasy and science fiction writing; and the recreations of the murder scenes.
It’s easy to keep these threads separate, believing that one is fantasy (Ethan’s stories) and one is reality (the murders).
Prospero effectively acts as the narrator in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, talking to himself at times as you explore. This inner monologue serves to contextualise and make sense of what you discover. You learn about Ethan’s lonely and escapist life in the mining village, alienated from his family who doesn’t understand him.
But Prospero is one of Ethan’s imaginative creations, so who are you really playing as?
Are you really playing as Ethan, life flashing before his eyes as he perishes in the fire?
There are hints, going right back to the start: walking towards the light at the end of the tunnel in the opening scene, for example.
But this twist ending (reminiscent of The Sixth Sense) is also open for interpretation.
To help me make sense of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, I came across an article by Adrian Chmielarz, one of the designers, and co-founder of the developer The Astronauts.
The article discusses the challenge of trying to resolve the twist and the open-for-interpretation ending, and I was pleased to see how my reflections and questions were addressed. It’s worth a read.
As it turns out, you make your own sense of events in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.
I’m satisfied with my interpretation, that Prospero is a manifestation of Ethan’s imagination, and that the murders were either a fantasy in his mind, or another one of his stories. I take Ethan’s death as real, an unfortunate accident, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter takes place during his final moments.
As a gaming experience, there is a linearity to The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and you are (sometimes literally) following a track. This might seem like a negative for a walking explorer, but this is a game at the interaction-fiction end of the genre—the story is first and foremost. It’s not a completely passive experience though, as you are expected to do some of the “mental lifting”. As a player, you need to immerse yourself in the environment to uncover the narrative, and therefore develop your interpretation.
My final reflection following my replay of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is that sometimes I just want to be told a story. I don’t need the gameplay to be unique or complex if it serves the story. And where the gameplay fades into the background as the narrative takes centre stage, I enjoy that space created to engage with and interpret the plot.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter created this space. Like with What Remains of Edith Finch, I was challenged to reflect on what I was consuming.
As a gamer, I’ve realised I like being in this place.
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